Monday, May 2, 2016

Earlier this year, the Dungeon Masters Guild started up. While I understand that it is not the ideal venue for every creator, I don't think it's a terrible option for anyone that fully understands the terms of the site and what you get and give up by using the site.

Despite being pretty invested in my schooling over the last year, I couldn't help but jump in and create a few items fairly soon after the guild was up and running.The first product that I put up was a product that contained multiple player character races. I had, for a while, wanted to create some playable races that took a half step back towards the folklore or mythology that inspired some of the other races in the game.

I'm not going to say its a revolutionary product. I had fun writing the product, and I hope that the people that have purchased the products so far have enjoyed it. Someday I'd like to invest some cash in some artwork to actually flesh it out better, so it's kind of a "living" project.The second project that I put on the site was just a personal nagging issue I had. In 3.5, Dragonborn were already introduced into the Forgotten Realms setting, and then they were reintroduced, with a different background, in 4th edition. I don't think anybody else had a burning need to have these two things reconciled, but it was still in the back of my mind, so I did some connective work between the 3.5 version of the origin and the Tyranny of Dragons storyline that launched 5th edition.

While I'm not particularly well versed in Traveller, I'm very, very tempted to throw my hat in the ring for creating content for Cypher System and Cortex Plus. I'm nearing the end of the school year and graduation, and while I really, really need to focus on finding my shining new career, I may have to spend some time getting familiar with what I can and can't do using the various systems under these conditions.

Which brings me to a side point--in the beginning, I used to look at the Dungeon Masters Guild site every day, multiple times a day, to see what kind of products were being produced. There were some brilliant items, and I wanted to spend some cash to support fellow creators. But there was a lot of questionable content as well. But the most frustrating items weren't bad (well, some of them were), they were just flat out not following the rules.

Apparently being told you can publish material if you follows the rules detailed in X, to some people, means, I can publish whatever I want, rip artwork from wherever, and I'll let someone else sort it out. It almost made me embarrassed to have participated for a while.

That said, seeing awesome products like Kobold Press publishing supplementary material to their Tyranny of Dragons adventures, or the Classic Modules Today conversions makes me appreciate what the site really seems to have been created to do.

While I realize a much more impressive way to break into the industry is to own your work and your product from the ground up, I don't think these programs are bad for resume building. The fact that the parent company legally owns whatever you publish insulates them from problems they might have looking at unsolicited work or work owned by other creators. The biggest downfall is the sheer glut of material that can be produced, and getting your particular product noticed in a sea of pet projects.

Then again, I'm just having fun and not expecting much out of the process, other than a few coins here or there and maybe a good discussion about what I was thinking when I did whatever thing I just did.

Last year I spent a lot of time playing games. I think that's a good thing for someone that runs games. Perspective is a great tool. But as I was finishing school, the blog delved into the realms of oblivion.

I feel really bad about that. I let down all five people that read every third post that I make, which means I'm probably down to one reader that reads every tenth post. It's time to fix that!

Now, I could fix that writing fascinating blog posts, promoting them well, and creating a fan base that wants to read my informative and entertaining posts. But . . . there is another way.

You see, there is a thing that happens in some realities. The laws of the universe fall apart. Almost everything winks out of existence. But then something happens. It doesn't matter what. Reality wants to exist, so whatever is left of reality comes up with a cosmological excuse.

What happens next is the cosmic event known as the reboot. I'm pretty sure Stephen Hawkings has written about the cosmological ramifications of the reboot in his best selling book How the Universe Just Makes Things Up Whenever Stuff Goes Wrong.

After a reboot happens, 50-99% of everything stays the same. Slightly less if the reboot has anything to do with Fox Studios. In the misty past, it was traditional to actually study and explain what had changed soon after the reboot happened, but in these modern times, we realize the reboots are fuzzy and malleable for years after they happen, so there is no point in actually trying to explain anything.

Did all of that seem really complicated? Well, that's part of the reboot process. Despite saying that you just want to start over, your explanation for starting over has to be at least as complicated as anything you are trying to fix that happened previously.

Also, I created a shadow blog that I haven't actually used yet, which is also designed to talk about gaming and geeky stuff. Why would I do that? Why would I tell you that? Because it has also become customary to sow the seeds of another reboot, just in case, right at the beginning of the current reboot. The Multiverse likes to leave its options open. Its quantum physics or something.

I say all of that to explain that this blog has many, many followers, all of whom are very satisfied with the content, and are anxiously waiting for new posts. I can't really tell you what the recent posts have been, because we don't want to box ourselves in quite yet, but those other entries have been awesome. We can all agree on that.